Climbing Gold

Could a route change you? Kareemah Batts joins Alex, Fitz, Lauren and Leici to talk about the routes that changed what they thought was possible.  Adaptive Climbing Group Thanks to our sponsors The North Face Momentous Athletic Greens

In April of 2022, Anna Pfaff set out to tick an Alaska classic – the Harvard Route on Mount Huntington. With her partner Priti Wright, Anna romped up the 3,000 foot face of ice, rock and snow, but the climb would prove to be a life changing experience. Frostbite would force doctors to amputate most of her toes. As a professional athlete, Anna would have to come to terms with her new best. Thanks t...

The next generation needs its inspiration. The Mellow crew provides it. Between sends of the world's hardest boulders, Daniel Woods, Shawn Raboutou, Giuliano Cameroni and Jimmy Webb took climbing media into their own hands, authoring YouTube ready videos of climbing’s cutting edge with an aesthetic more akin to skate films than National Geographic.  Shawn on Spectre (V13) Elijah Kiser on Levity (V...

Philosophy professor and member of the exclusive 5.14 after 60 club, Bill Ramsey has a bone to pick with those who value strength over technique. In this roundtable discussion, we dive into our bias towards power and Bill’s concept of the pain box. Nothing’s worse than the pain of sucking. Thanks to our sponsors The North Face Momentous

Quiet and humble, Lucho Rivera was the antithesis to the wild, loud and over the top antics of the Stone Monkey generation. Yet in that band of misfits, he found a home. Now, after three decades of climbing in Yosemite, Lucho may have made the greatest contribution of his generation to the Valley’s history. Thanks to our sponsors: The North Face Momentous

In the 1970’s, no flame burned brighter than Hot Henry Barber. Often heralded as the first traveling climber, Henry redefined standards for free climbing and free soloing not just the US, but every country he visited. Along the way, he shattered egos before learning to check his own. Thanks to our sponsors! The North Face Momentous

After Jack Dorn’s death, conspiracies begin to fly in the Valley. Camp 4’s dirtbags figure out what to do with their spoils. And the plane crash becomes the stuff of Hollywood, literally. Our final installment of the Dope Lake series.

By early April, the rumors of Dope Lake began to spread far beyond the Valley. What was once an under-the-radar get rich mission had spiraled out of control. When the rangers get a tip, they decide it’s time to take back the lake, but not before one of the legendary Stonemasters escapes with a kilo of cocaine and the black book. The party has to end.

Yosemite, 1970’s – it was the heart of the climbing revolution. You’ve heard a lot of voices and names in the Dope Lake series – John Long, Jim Bridwell, John Bachar, Dale Bard, Vern Clevenger, John Yablonski. Big names with big personalities that helped write the history of Yosemite Valley across all the disciplines – big wall, free climbing and bouldering. When the decade started, the hardest ro...

The gold rush begins. When two skiers reported a possible plane crash, Yosemite Ranger Tim Setnicka started making calls. Pretty soon he realized the Park Service had a serious investigation on their hands. When federal agents landed in El Cap Meadow, the Camp 4 climbers knew something was up, but had no idea their lives were about to change.  

In 1976, a plane carrying four million dollars in marijuana crashed into a small alpine lake in the Yosemite high country. Broke and living off discarded scraps of tourist meals in the valley below, America’s best climbers smelled opportunity. The events at Dope Lake became climbing’s most potent myth and inspired a Hollywood blockbuster, but the real story and the lives it changed is stranger tha...

What happens when you unexpectedly find yourself in the global spotlight? Tommy Caldwell offers a candid perspective into the personal impacts that the Dawn Wall media coverage had on his life. Almost overnight, the ascent arguably made Tommy the first household name in climbing and inspired an influx of new climbers to the sport.

In 2015, climbing became a cultural avalanche. The Dawn Wall was its tipping point. In part one, we talk with the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times reporter John Branch. We hear about Sandy Russell’s novel project to put The Nose on Google Street View and Tommy Caldwell helps us make sense of the year climbing finally hit the mainstream. 

This month, Alex completed his multi-year project to traverse Red Rock’s iconic skyline. In 32 hours, Alex ticked off 35 miles, 23k feet of climbing up to 5.11- and 20 named summits to complete the HURT – Honnold's Ultimate Red Rock Traverse. Fitz and Alex’s conversation digs into what went into this cutting edge effort.   

For many of us, social media is the portal into the lives of outdoor photographers and filmmakers. We see the images and the films they create, but it can be a bit of a mystery for how it all works behind the lens. Today we talk to climbers Colette McInerney and Austin Siadak, both photographers and filmmakers who have worked on many different outdoor film projects, to get a glimpse of what it tak...

How can you turn your fear into excitement? Today, we’re sharing an episode of Re:Thinking with Adam Grant, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective. In this episode, Alex sits down with Adam to talk about regulating emotions when you’re hanging off the edge of a cliff, what still scares him, and how he stays motivated to pursue ambitious goals. If you’d like to hear more from leading thinkers and...

Does climbing have inherent value? We kick off season 4 of Climbing Gold by talking about finding meaning in our lives, whether through climbing or other pursuits. Nik Berry, an ER nurse and rock climber, reflects on his pursuit of climbing hard routes and how that shifted and guided him during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How do you decide to take on risk? Alex and Fitz discuss their five takeaways from talking to climbers, alpinists and experts for this season on risk.  

We’ve spent this season trying to better understand the risks climbers take, but we had one last question. How do you walk away? Steve House gave his entire attention and focus to alpinism. He was an iconic figure who seemed poised to finish out a career as a sponsored athlete. Then in April of 2021, Steve announced that he was done with elite climbing, embarking on a new chapter of life. Learn mo...

Big, audacious dreams come with real risks. The dreamers are presented with a labyrinth of physical hazards, possible outcomes, hurdles, and dead ends. Often, we are told that success comes down to positive thinking, but maybe there’s a flip side to that coin. Few people have thought about risk more than Will Gadd, pioneer of modern mixed and ice climbing. And he’s got a lot to say. We also get so...

Sometimes you don’t get to choose the risks you take. It’s a matter of survival. Alex talks with climber and photographer Nikki Smith about what she gained when she took one of the biggest risks of her life, how her passion for climbing has evolved as she’s forged her path to live authentically, and the importance of standing up for others. We ask some hard questions and get honest answers.

To manage risk, you first have to see the threat. Best-selling author Michele Wucker and Alex talk about how he evaluates risk, creating safety nets and his greatest fear. 

In early 1980’s Yosemite, big wall climbing was tedious, difficult and often terrifying. Enter Lydia Bradey, a 19-year-old New Zealander. She’s not good at free climbing, but she has this overwhelming desire to experience the feeling of being on one the steepest bits of El Capitan thousands of feet above the ground. There are people who dream of doing things and there are the people that go do the...

As humans, we sometimes prefer to ignore big risks that are lurking within our view. See climate change or storm clouds building over a ridge. Best-selling author Michele Wucker has dedicated her career to understanding how humans interact with risk in big and small systems. Her hypothesis: the risks we take create a unique fingerprint. Colin Haley, aka Captain Safety, has shaped his fingerprint t...

Hazel Findlay and Alex dive deeper into the intricacies of British trad climbing. Just don’t hit the ground.